Race had almost abandoned his suspicions of Sir Walter Raven, whom he liked more and more, when, on his eighth night at Wood House, a sound startled him from a dream of linen fold patterned panelling. Usually, when he waked thus, it was to find all silent, and he would turn over and fall asleep once more, telling himself that the noise had been part of his dream. But this time it continued. There was a queer creaking behind the wainscot.
Of course, it might be rats. Rats could make any sort of sound in the night; and yet he did not think that rats had made this sound. It was too like a foot treading on a loose board, and then stepping on it a second time.
Christopher struck a match and looked at his watch. It was two o’clock. He determined to stop awake the next night and listen for the same thing again. He did so; and it came, at almost exactly the same hour. That day, and the day before, a mysterious disappearance of jewellery had taken place.
In the morning Christopher asked the servant who brought his morning tea who occupied the adjoining room. “Sir Walter Raven,” was the answer. Race was angry with himself for not having learned earlier who his neighbour was; but during the day, as he passed, and saw the door of the next room ajar, he glanced in. It seemed to him that there was an inexplicable distance between this door and his. The rooms were supposed to adjoin each other. His own door was near the dividing wall, and so was Sir Walter’s, yet there was a wide space between.
Through the open door of Sir Walter Raven’s room he could see a low window, with a cushioned seat in the embrasure. In his room there was one of the same size and shape. To prevent mistake he propped a book against the lozenge-panes of his own window, and went out to walk round the rambling house and reconnoitre.
Yes, there was the book; and there was Sir Walter’s window farther on towards the left. But there was something between which did not puzzle Christopher as much as it would had he not noticed the distance separating the doors of the two adjoining rooms. Half-way between the two low windows was a tiny one, so overgrown with ivy that it was all but invisible, even to an observant eye.
“Sir Walter Raven must have a cupboard in his wall, lit by that little window,” Christopher decided, “or else there’s a secret ‘hidie hole’ between his room and mine.”
As Sir Walter’s door stood open, Christopher could peer into the room, by pausing as he passed through the corridor, and discover for himself whether there was a cupboard door in the wall. If anyone saw him looking in, it would be simple to explain that he had absent-mindedly mistaken the room for his own, farther on. But he was not seen and had plenty of time, lingering on the threshold, to make certain that no cupboard door was visible in the oak wainscot of the wall. If there were a door it was a secret one.
Christopher was sure now that some place of concealment existed between his room and Sir Walter Raven’s, and he was sure, too, that someone entered there at night. What was that someone’s errand, and had it any connection with the mystery? This was a question which Christopher considered it his business to find out as soon as possible.
To begin with, he tapped the wainscoting in his own room, and was interested to discover that his knock gave out a hollow sound. He believed that there was but the one thickness of oak between him and the secret, whatever it might be, which lay beyond.
The panelling here was simple, without any elaboration of carving. The wainscot, which reached from floor to ceiling, was divided into large squares framed in a kind of fluting. Having examined each of these squares on the wall nearest Sir Walter Raven’s he gave up the hope that there was any hidden door or sliding panel.
“I could saw out a square, though,” he thought, “and look at what’s on the other side; or I could squeeze through if it seemed worth while. A panel behind the curtain of my bed would do; and I could stick it in again, so that if anybody suspected there was something up they would hardly be able to see what I’d been doing.”
Apparently no one ever entered the hiding-place except in the night, about two o’clock. The noises behind the wainscoting continued for a few minutes only, and after that all was silence.
In the afternoon Christopher motored into Ringhurst to buy a small saw, and a bull’s-eye lantern such as policemen use. On the way back he overtook Sir Walter with Sidney, and they accepted his offer to give them a lift back to Wood House. “Queer thing, I’m used to tramping about the whole day, and don’t turn a hair after a twenty-five-mile walk; but lately I feel done up after eight,” said the young man, who was looking pale and heavy-eyed. “I suppose it must be that the climate’s relaxing.”
Christopher was pricked with a guilty pang. He was engaged by Miss Chester to act as a detective, and yet he felt ashamed of suspecting and plotting against the man she loved. He liked Raven, too. Altogether, keen as he was to fathom the mystery, he wished that he had never come to Wood House.
They talked about the robberies as Christopher drove the car home, Sidney sitting beside him, Sir Walter leaning forward in the tonneau. “After all, it will end in our going away from the dear old place,” sighed Sidney, with tears in her eyes. “The strain is wearing mother out; and, you know, if neither of us continues living in the house it will go, as I told you, to the man who would have been the heir had the entail not been broken.”
“You’ll both come out with me to Colorado and forget your troubles. Let the chap have the place, and be thankful it’s off your hands,” said Raven.
He spoke with the sincerity of a lover, not like a schemer who would force a woman to his will by foul means if fair ones proved not strong enough.
“I feel a beast spying on him and working against him,” thought Christopher. “Suppose he knows nothing about the secret place next his room? Suppose the noises are made by rats? And what if, after all, the people who think they have been robbed never have been robbed? I’ll give Raven the benefit of the doubt until I’ve tried one more experiment.”
Tea was going on in the hall when Scarlet Runner arrived at Wood House. There were letters for Christopher, and he announced in the hearing of everyone, including the servants, that unless he should get a telegram advising him to the contrary he must leave Wood House, where he had spent such an enjoyable fortnight, immediately after breakfast the next morning.
“You’ll not come back to us?” asked Sidney, with veiled meaning in her voice.
Christopher pretended not to notice the meaning. “I’m sorry to say I shan’t be able to,” he answered. “Already I’ve been here longer than I expected.”
He did not mean to take any money from the girl, but though she could not be aware of this resolution, she seemed really sorry to have him go, failure as he had been – thus far.
Christopher took longer over dressing for dinner that night than usual. He hesitated whether to wear the studs and sleeve-links he liked best, or others which he did not care about. Also he was half minded to lock his watch up in his suit-case. Finally, however, he resolved to make his experiment bravely. “I’m not hysterical,” he said to himself, “though I might get to be if I stopped here much longer. I shan’t steal my own things and hide them, if that’s what other people do.”
Throughout his stay at Wood House he had taken his meals at the same small table, except once or twice when he had been asked to join new-made acquaintances for dinner. But to-night he invited Sir Walter Raven to dine with him, “as it was his last evening.” The young man accepted, and they talked of Colorado. Sir Walter was inviting him to come out to his ranch some day, when suddenly the expression of the once healthy, sunburnt, now slightly haggard face changed.